Not news, but Wishart was foaming-at-the-mouth insane on the radio this morning. His argument was, "How can you object to the bigotry of this column when Investigate has published lots of other bigotry in the past that you all conveniently ignored!"

I'm disappointed that no-one (that I know of) has challenged Prosser's assertion that "most terrorists are Muslim". It's a very myopic, quasi-US-centric, view and ignores goings on in all sorts of places, including Spain, Northern Ireland, the drug-war related terrorism in Mexico etc...etc...etc...

we go through this once every 6 months or so. if it's not women wearing burqa's banned from buses, it's cartoons, it's various politicians or authors. some little spark and "we" get to have "the debate" all over again as to whether muslims are good or bad, happy or sad. leaders of political parties get to have their faces in the news and posture about inclusiveness and to express OUTRAGE at such terrible remarks. let's see how many political points we can score on the back of this current incident.

frankly, i'm sick of these conversations and i'm sick being used as a political tool. and that is exactly what happened in this case.

Prosser apologised to Kathryn Ryan for the style and manner of his delivery, but skirted around the message.

I actually sympathised with him for having his knife confiscated. I had to hand over a nice little Leatherman on my key ring when leaving Sydney last year - though they let me carry on a bottle of Scotch that I could have killed people with!

But the guy's a racist prick, and a carpetbagger too - Winston's quality control is a bit lackadaisical I reckon.

Fairfax carried a story this morning that unnamed NZ First MPs were privately ropeable over Prosser's self-outing. Presumably this is mostly Denis O'Rourke, aka NZ First's intellectual wing, who's unlikely to have anything to say since he went into permanent hissy fit mode back in October.

Others have made better comments than I could on the serious issue at hand, so I'll just derail onto a quote from "The (Uncensored) Thoughts of Chairman Frank" (i.e. the late Frank Haden) whose crack about Winston's hair came to mind after reading your line about the headphones: "I don't think Winston Peters' hair is even made of hair. I think it's plastic. It doesn't move in the wind. It's too shiny altogether, it could well be ebony carved in Indonesia."

I actually sympathised with him for having his knife confiscated. I had to hand over a nice little Leatherman on my key ring

This has been a bugbear with me since I first began to travel by air* - I have, since I was 7 years old, ALWAYS carried knives - they are the consummate human tool. I've had complex (& v. expensive) Swiss Army multitool knives confiscated - and I KNOW the blades were under 6 cm...

What struck me was that calls to "ban Muslims from (our) planes" - alongside calls to "ban the burqa" and "arm the vulnerable (whether they like it or not)" are all entirely routine talking points for the populist right.

I've probably read hundreds of comments to this effect on blogs (indeed, on Kiwiblog alone) and on news sites that allow comments. I never listen to talkback radio but suspect it might not be much different.

Of course, the difference here is that they're spoken by an MP (albeit a rather inconsequential one), and not by "Anonymous Online Hatemonger #437", but there's probably a decent constituency for it. More than the crucial 5% anyway...

It's got NZ First back in the news, highlighting precisely the "issues" it's always sought to champion, as Russell notes. Mission accomplished?

Hmm...this is right on top of Key's proposal to keep the (muslim?) boaties away from our Fair Isle. Heh. I listened to Prosser make this point this morning about the "timing" of Ferrar's comment.

The problem is that few read the misnamed "investigate" so it probably took that long for a the relegated-to-the-doctor/dentist copy to circulate to David. Check his appointment diary.

As I was listening to the Prosser interview this morning, I think I heard Katherine mentioned what the Human Rights Act can throw at him. What I thought I heard was that you can do him for the wogistan comment ( national origins), his looks (ethnicity/race) but not for his religious comments. Is this right???

Is the Human Rights act that secular??? Discrimination for religious reasons is a no no but "disrespecting" is ok it seems.

Along with all the others. There's plenty of anti-female skew in a wide variety of world religions, some of which we tune out because we're more familiar with it. I mean, there's a perfectly good reason Catholic women can't be priests, right? Or Mormon women aren't supposed to work outside the home?

Prosser didn't lose his knife, he just had to check it into his luggage. Another thing I've seen happen is that you can post knives home from the airport.

The theory behind disrespecting religion being ok is that while race etc isn't a choice, religion is, and is therefore up for free discussion. I'm not sure I buy that, but the alternative can be ugly - the Catholic church wants to arrest a guy in India called Sanal Edamaruku for pointing out that one of their miraculous bleeding statues was the result of a leaking pipe. He's facing blasphemy charges.

but the alternative can be ugly - the Catholic church wants to arrest a guy in India called Sanal Edamaruku for pointing out that one of their miraculous bleeding statues was the result of a leaking pipe. He's facing blasphemy charges.

Yep.Almost all Abrahamic religions are anti-female BUT - Islamic ones are much WORSE in their *physical* control of *all* women (the women dont have to be religious cohorts.)